Unexplained Intrusions at Nuclear Sites Met With Silence From Department of Energy as Decades of Secrecy Face Intense Scrutiny
Written by Christopher Sharp - 20 July 2024
Following the 2015 intrusion of an unidentified diamond-shaped object over the Pantex nuclear weapons facility in Texas—recently uncovered by journalist Dustin Slaughter through a Freedom of Information Act request—the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has informed Liberation Times that it cannot confirm whether the object represented Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP).
Additionally, the NNSA, which is part of the Department of Energy (DOE) and is responsible for managing and securing the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, could not confirm whether the then Energy Secretary, Ernest Moniz, was informed about the alarming event.
When asked for further information about the incident, an NNSA spokesperson told Liberation Times:
‘Unfortunately, we don’t have any information for you other than what was released in the FOIA documents relating to the incident.’
It raises alarming questions about the NNSA's willingness to acknowledge a UAP problem at extremely sensitive DOE facilities.
On 2 September 2015, as reported by Dustin Slaughter, security personnel at the Pantex nuclear weapons facility near Panhandle, Texas, reported witnessing an unidentified diamond-shaped object.
Described as more rounded at the top, the object was followed by security for several miles until it disappeared from view.
Ground radar tracked the object, which was photographed by personnel at a nearby radar tower.
Sandia National Laboratories later analysed the images - redacted from a report provided to Dustin Slaughter - but the conclusions remain undisclosed, with images redacted to protect ‘unclassified controlled nuclear information’.
Journalists George Knapp and Jeremy Corbell reported another UAP incident at Pantex from 2013.
This event involved a jellyfish-shaped object with a dome on top and tentacles at the bottom.
According to the journalists, thermal footage captured by two cameras shows the UAP moving through the facility near Pantex’s plutonium pits with impunity before reversing down a corridor at an extremely low altitude in a perfectly straight line, with the facility’s ‘Site 4’ on the left and ‘Site 12’ on the right—two areas of the highest value and classification at the facility.
The UAP then accelerated upwards at a 45-degree angle at an extreme rate of speed, disappearing from view.
Speaking to Liberation Times, Jeremy Corbell stated:
“At the core of the UFO problem has always been the incursions into nuclear bases - our most heavily guarded and secretive installations. These intrusions into highly sensitive DOE and military sites are commonplace, and continue unabated - and typically unacknowledged - to this day.
“Government security teams and systems have failed to identify the intruders and appear powerless to stop them.
“A "jellyfish" type UFO invaded the central operational heart of Pantex - the atomic weapons facility in Texas - in 2013. There are two pieces of thermal footage showing this - not yet released to the public. And, your government is covering it up and continues to lie to you about it.
“The public has a need to know the truth about these UFO incursions.”
The lack of transparency is leading to increasing pressure on the DOE from both Congress and the public.
This follows a recent heated exchange between the current Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm, and Representatives Tim Burchett and Anna Paulina Luna at a House Oversight Committee hearing, held in May 2024.
During the hearing, Granholm attempted to dismiss any potential UAP reports over nuclear sites as sightings of prosaic drones.
However, Representative Luna reminded Granholm that such reports over nuclear sites have been documented since the 1940s and 1950s.
In fact, Dustin Slaughter uncovered reports of mysterious sightings, including diamond-shaped craft, over Pantex dating back to the 1950s and 1960s.
Furthermore, in the late 1940s, mysterious green fireballs were witnessed over Los Alamos National Lab and other sensitive installations.
When asked about sightings of UAP in 1966, the father of the Hydrogen Bomb and early member of the Manhattan Project, which developed the first atomic bomb, Professor Edward Teller, commented, "They are miracles."
Teller added, "The human soul needs miracles." He then said: "And in a scientific age, what is more proper than that the miracles should be scientific miracles?"
Following Granholm’s hearing, Representative Luna submitted the following questions to Granholm relating to UAP incursions and what protocols are involved:
How are unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned aerial system (UAS) designated by DOE?
What characteristics would an object need to display to be considered a UAP?
How many UAP incursions have been referred to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO)?
At Formula One events, private companies are deployed which can disable drones and trace the operator – is that technology available to the DOE?
Follow Up: If so, how many drones were you able to track to an operator and how many were you able to disable?
How many UAP incursions have been reported internally this year alone, across all Critical Infrastructure Locations with DOE oversight (e.g. nuclear armament, refinement, and deployment sites like Pantex and Savannah River Site)?
Several reports indicate frequent drone incursions over DOE nuclear facilities, including an incident on April 1, 2021, at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). Can you detail the DOE's current security measures to prevent unauthorized drone activities, and what steps are being taken to enhance these measures given the frequency of such incidents?
The recent AARO report highlights that better data collection is crucial for understanding UAP phenomena. What technologies and methodologies are the DOE employing to gather and analyze data related to UAP sightings, particularly those near critical infrastructure?
Given the potential security and safety risks posed by UAPs near nuclear facilities, what protocols are in place to ensure the safety of DOE personnel and the public? Have there been any documented cases of adverse health effects on personnel due to UAP encounters?
In the spirit of transparency, how does the DOE handle the public disclosure of UAP incidents? Are there any plans to declassify and release more detailed reports on UAP sightings over DOE facilities to inform and reassure the public?
During the hearing, Representative Luna questioned Secretary Granholm about whether the DOE collaborates with the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which is alleged to play an important role together with the CIA’s Office of Global Access in retrieval missions relating to non-human craft occurring in contested territories.
This adds another dimension to the DOE’s alleged involvement regarding UAP - playing an active role in retrieval missions of potential non-human craft.
Liberation Times understands that DOE labs are the recipients of nuclear materials recovered through such missions.
As one source told the Daily Mail, ‘The Department of Energy national labs are materials analysis contractors whenever recovered radioisotopes are involved but not always just radioisotope materials. The aerospace-defense industry are also contractors that specifically do not handle any recovered radioisotopes, but they handle the other non-radioactive material – and intact craft.’
Uncovering the DOE’s involvement in alleged UAP programs remains exceptionally challenging due to the stringent levels of secrecy and classification protocols established under the Atomic Energy Act, which governs the control and dissemination of nuclear information and technology.
Recently, Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz claimed that during a meeting with White House officials to discuss Artificial Intelligence, the officials indicated they could classify any area of mathematics they believe is heading in a harmful direction as a state secret, effectively halting all further research in that area.
The officials added, “We classified a whole entire area of physics within the nuclear era and made them state secrets…and that research vanished, and we are absolutely capable of doing that again for AI.”
The implication of classifying an entire area of physics may connect, albeit perhaps unknowingly to the officials involved, to allegations from UAP whistleblowers, who have testified to certain Senators and the Intelligence Community’s Inspector General.
Some whistleblowers claim successful reverse-engineering of a triangle-shaped craft utilizing unconventional propulsion technology, made possible through unconventional physics and advanced materials.
Such a craft, even if using gravitational energy could be considered within the definition of ‘special nuclear material’, as per the Atomic Energy Act, due to its broad definitions.
Therefore, the presence of such materials in alleged retrieved advanced non-human craft and utilised through reverse engineering, would fall under Atomic Energy Act secrecy.
Section 51 of the Atomic Energy Act grants the Secretary of Energy (originally the Atomic Energy Commission) the authority to classify additional materials as ‘special nuclear material’ if it is in the interest of national defense and security or public health and safety.
Once classified as such, these materials can be subject to strict regulation and control, which often includes classification as state secrets.
The Atomic Energy Act, codified in Title 42, Chapter 23 of the U.S. Code, states:
‘The term "special nuclear material" means (1) plutonium, uranium enriched in the isotope 233 or in the isotope 235, and any other material which the Commission, pursuant to the provisions of section 2071 of this title, determines to be special nuclear material, but does not include source material; or (2) any material artificially enriched by any of the foregoing, but does not include source material.’
But U.S. Code § 2071 provides a broader definition and loophole to cover other advanced materials relating to UAP and non-human technology, which reads:
‘The Commission may determine from time to time that other material is special nuclear material in addition to that specified in the definition as special nuclear material.
‘Before making any such determination, the Commission must find that such material is capable of releasing substantial quantities of atomic energy and must find that the determination that such material is special nuclear material is in the interest of the common defense and security, and the President must have expressly assented in writing to the determination.’
Commenting on the above language, Matthew Pines, a civilian intelligence analyst, told Liberation Times:
“This section allows the Commission - now the Secretary of Energy - with the President’s approval and after consulting the military liaison committee, to designate additional materials as ‘special nuclear material’ if they are capable of releasing substantial quantities of atomic energy and are significant to national defense and security.
“Putting this together, it is legally plausible that UAP material or human-engineered craft using advanced materials could be ‘other materials’ so judged and designated as ‘special nuclear materials’, which would make any related ‘data’ (“recorded information, regardless of form or characteristics, origin, or method of recording”) into Restricted Data, and thus ‘born secret’ under Atomic Energy Act provisions.”
Pines added:
“Of course, the Senate might feel that this is exploiting the statute to avoid declassification and reporting obligations, especially if these materials and the craft using them don’t exactly rely on release of ‘atomic energy’ per se, but say, gravitational energy.”
It also implies that Presidents, dating back to Dwight D. Eisenhower, have played a role in classifying such materials - something Liberation Times understands is correct.
The resurrected UAP Disclosure Act (UAPDA), put forward by Senators Mike Rounds and Chuck Schumer last week, if implemented in full to provide transparency in government, is in part fuelled by the Atomic Energy Act.
The UAPDA language explicitly states:
‘Legislation is necessary because credible evidence and testimony indicates that Federal Government unidentified anomalous phenomena records exist that have not been declassified or subject to mandatory declassification review as set forth in Executive Order 13526 (50 U.S.C. 3161 note; relating to classified national security information) due in part to exemptions under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (42 U.S.C. 2011 et seq.), as well as an over-broad interpretation of ‘‘transclassified foreign nuclear information’’, which is also exempt from mandatory declassification, thereby preventing public disclosure under existing provisions of law.’
If passed, all UAP records, including those from ‘the Department of Energy and its progenitors, the Manhattan Project, the Atomic Energy Commission, and the Energy Research and Development Administration’, will be collected by the Archivist of the United States, a post currently held by author and academic Colleen Shogan.
An independent 'Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Records Review Board', composed of nine citizens nominated by the President, will be responsible for determining whether any record should be disclosed to the public or postponed for disclosure - although the final authority on whether to release or withhold these records rests with the President.
If the UAPDA does pass in full, whatever the Review Board uncovers dating back from the Manhattan Project could prove hugely significant, especially when accounting for a previous statement provided by former senior intelligence official and UAP whistleblower, David Grusch, who told the BBC in 2023:
“It goes back eighty or ninety years ago when this was first created and they translated some of the secrecy from the Manhattan Project onto this subject because they weren’t sure how ontologically shocking it would be to the world populace and then two, as you could imagine it is a pandora’s box for potential military and weapons development like reverse engineering activity, so they decided to keep it under wraps for many years.”
DOE secrecy has become a major obstacle to uncovering the truth about UAP.
This includes a lack of transparency regarding UAP incursions into its most sensitive facilities and allegations that its national labs are involved in retrieval operations.
Additionally, the Atomic Energy Act possesses extensive authority, beyond nuclear materials, allowing government to conceal potentially ground-breaking information and technological breakthroughs associated with advanced non-human intelligence.
With groundbreaking legislation now under consideration, supported by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and influential Republican Senator Mike Rounds, the long-standing secrecy of the Atomic Energy Act could face its most significant challenge since its inception - and that could bring profound implications with regards to UAP.
